Massacre Canyon (13 page)

Preacher had been all over this part of the country long before anybody ever thought of finding gold here, and once he had seen a place, tramped over it with his own two feet or ridden it on one of the fine gray stallions he had named Horse, he never forgot it. So when Elizabeth Langston told him where the Frederickson claim was located, he had known right where to find it.

The next day after the encounter with the crooked gambler in the O.K. Saloon, Preacher rode out the gulch west of the settlement and took one of its branches that veered off to the northwest. He had a long, coiled rope hanging from his saddle horn. He wasn't sure how or even if he would use it, but it might come in handy.

He rode to within half a mile of his destination, then reined in Horse and swung down from the saddle.

“You're gonna have to stay here, fella,” he told the gray stallion as he looped the reins around a sapling. “But there's plenty of grass to graze on. I'll try not to be gone too long, but when you're wadin' right into trouble, ain't no tellin' just how long it'll take.” He turned toward the slope and added, “Come on, Dog.”

There was no telling, either, how many big, wolflike curs called Dog had been his trail companions. Some had been descendants of the original Dog, but eventually that line had died out. Preacher had a knack for finding similar animals, and at times he even wondered if the same spirit animated all of them. That was a fanciful notion, to be sure, but he had seen enough strange things in his life not to rule out too many possibilities, no matter how far-fetched they might be.

The current Dog followed him now as he climbed up the brushy slope on the side of the gulch. In places the slant was so steep that he had to grab hold of tree trunks in order to pull himself higher. When he was about halfway to the top he figured that was far enough and turned to follow the gulch toward the Frederickson claim.

As he approached, he heard men's voices and the metallic sound of a pick digging into rock. Smoke rose up the slope toward Preacher. When he judged that he was right above the diggings, he eased his way down closer. Dog came along behind him, moving as quietly as the old mountain man.

After a few minutes of getting into position, Preacher hunkered on his heels and parted some branches in the brush. That gap allowed him to gaze down on the Frederickson claim. From that vantage point, he couldn't see into the shaft they were digging into the hillside, but the sounds told him two men were working in there. Two more men knelt beside the creek with pans and searched for gold that way, not far from a pole pen where a couple of mules grazed.

That was four of the five West Virginians accounted for. The fifth one was most likely inside the crude cabin they had built, guarding Mattie Langston. Or Mattie Frederickson now, since she was married to the youngest Frederickson brother. It looked like the girl's mother had been right about that part, anyway.

Preacher's eyes narrowed as he studied the layout. He thought there was a chance he might be able to reach the cabin by approaching it from the upstream side. Getting in there could be difficult, though. The back wall didn't have a window in it, and there was a very good chance the side walls didn't, either. Nobody would go to the trouble of putting windows in a primitive log cabin like this when all they did in it was sleep and eat and take advantage of a foolish girl.

The two men he could see working in the stream were both young, not much more than twenty. That meant the patriarch of the Frederickson clan was in either the shaft or the cabin. The best thing to do might be to lure them out, get them all together where he could see them.

Also, he wanted a better look at Mattie before he started killing people over her.

“Come on, Dog,” he said quietly to the big cur, who hadn't made a sound.

It didn't take them long to get back to where he had left Horse. He untied the big stallion, swung into the saddle, and started riding along the stream at a deliberate pace, like a man who had all the time in the world and not a care in it, either.

He even started singing an old song in a surprisingly good voice. He wanted the Fredericksons to know he was coming. Men working a mining claim sometimes got a mite jumpy about strangers coming around.

He rounded a bend in the creek and saw the cabin and the diggings in the hillside up ahead. The two men beside the stream set their pans aside and picked up the rifles that were handy. The weapons were fairly new Winchester repeaters, Preacher noted.

One of the men called, “Pa! Wiley!”

As Preacher continued his steady approach, two figures emerged from the shaft. One was thick-bodied and heavy-shouldered, with just a fringe of graying brown hair left around his ears and the back of his head. The other was about thirty, brawny and dark-haired. Both men wore holstered pistols. Their shirts were wet with sweat from the work they'd been doing.

None of the four men Preacher could see looked quite young enough to be Billy Frederickson, who had wooed and wed Mattie Langston. The young couple must be inside the cabin, Preacher decided.

And Billy must have heard his brother call out from the creek, because the door opened and he appeared, a tall, lanky youngster with a shock of sandy hair. He had a rifle in his hands, too.

Preacher saw movement just beyond Billy. A flash of a pale, heart-shaped face surrounded by dark curls. That had to be Mattie. Preacher didn't really get a good look at her, though, before Billy moved a little and blocked his view. Preacher didn't think it was deliberate, but that was the result, anyway.

“Better hold on there, stranger,” the elder Frederickson said as he held up a hand with the palm turned toward Preacher. “This is our claim. I'd be askin' what you're doin' here.”

Preacher brought Horse to a stop and rested his hand on the saddle horn as he said, “Why, I'm just a-ridin' up this here gulch. What's it look like I'm doin'?”

“If you're just passin' through, where are you bound for?”

“I ain't exactly sure. I thought I'd scout a ways along the crick and see if I could find a likely claim that ain't took yet.”

One of the younger men standing at the edge of the stream laughed and said, “You're about five years too late, you old coot. All the good claims are played out, except for the ones the big companies gobbled up. We're breakin' our backs workin' this place, and barely makin' enough to keep beans in the pot.”

“You hush, Thurlow,” Frederickson said. “What we make or don't make ain't any business of this stranger.” He jerked his head toward the north. “If you don't have any reason to be here, just pass on through.”

“Well . . .” Preacher rubbed his grizzled jaw. “Speakin' of beans, it's gettin' on toward midday, and I could use somethin' to eat. Seems like I smell somethin' cookin'. Thought I caught a glimpse of a lady in there. Your wife, mister?”

He addressed the question to Frederickson, but it brought a laugh from Billy.

“Shoot, no, she's my wife!” He stepped aside to reveal Mattie standing there in a drab shirt and long skirt with an apron over them. Her face was flushed, probably from cooking, and the look in her eyes reminded Preacher of a rabbit with its foot caught in a trap.

She was a girl who needed help, all right. He had no doubt of that now.

“Get back in that cabin!” Frederickson roared at his youngest son. “Take that trollop with you.”

Billy's face darkened with anger. He said, “You got no call to talk about her like that, Pa. I know I said it was all right to—”

“Hush up and do what I told you!”

Glaring, Billy moved back into the cabin. He herded Mattie ahead of him. The door swung closed behind them.

“You'll get nothing to eat here, mister,” Frederickson told Preacher.

“I could pay you—” the mountain man began.

“Wouldn't matter. We're on short rations right now, until we take enough gold out of the ground to buy more. Sorry. You'll have to go on your way.”

“All right,” Preacher said. “Didn't mean to cause no trouble.”

He heeled Horse into a walk and started past the men, whistling a tune as he did so. One of the Frederickson boys asked, “Is that a wolf followin' you, mister?”

“Naw, he's a dog. Might have a little wolf blood in him, though. I wouldn't be a bit surprised.”

“Keep movin',” Frederickson growled.

Preacher suspected that the old man might have one of the boys follow him, just to make sure he didn't double back. So he rode along the creek for a good two miles before he stopped. He didn't think any of them would have followed him that far.

The Fredericksons were on edge, especially the old man. That was a good indication he knew he was doing something wrong.

Preacher dismounted to study on his best course of action. He knew he had to tread carefully, because there was a chance Frederickson would kill that girl before he'd allow her to be rescued. He wouldn't want her telling anybody about what had been going on here, especially not the authorities. The local lawman might be hesitant to interfere in domestic matters, but he might have to if Mattie's story was bad enough and she told it convincingly enough.

“You might as well graze some more,” he told Horse, then added to Dog, “and you might as well go roust up some game if you want to. Best chance of gettin' that girl outta there will be after it's dark, so we're gonna be here for a while.”

By evening, Preacher had figured out what he was going to do. There was something a lot more precious to the Fredericksons than Billy's pretty young wife. That was their claim, and the gold they were taking out of it. Anything that threatened that would make them react in a hurry.

They might take turns standing guard over the mine at night. Knowing that, Preacher moved soundlessly through the dark as he climbed down the slope toward the opening of the shaft. The coiled rope was looped over his shoulder. He had left Dog behind, although the big brute wasn't too far away and could come in a hurry if Preacher called him.

Preacher stopped about ten feet above the opening. He listened and didn't hear anything, but after a moment he smelled tobacco smoke. Somebody had a pipe going.

He was patient, and after a while a man grunted, stirred, and walked out away from the mine. Preacher could tell from the way the figure stretched and rolled his shoulders that he was having trouble staying awake. Preacher couldn't tell which of the Fredericksons it was. Not the father; this man was too tall. It could have been any of the boys, though.

Preacher slipped closer and slid one of his Colts from its holster. He didn't want to fire any shots just yet, but he would if he had to. Soundlessly, he moved out to the end of a jutting slab of rock, timed his leap, and sailed toward the guard just as the man turned back toward the mine.

Whichever of the Frederickson boys he was, he never had a chance. Preacher fell on him out of the dark like a giant bird of prey and knocked him senseless with one swipe of the revolver.

It would have been simple enough to go ahead and cut the unconscious guard's throat, but Preacher decided not to do that. When he had seen Mattie earlier, she had definitely looked scared, like a girl who had gotten into something she desperately wanted out of, but until he talked to her, he couldn't be absolutely sure that the situation was how Mattie's mother had described it to him. Until he knew for certain, he wasn't going to kill any of the Fredericksons in cold blood.

Now, if they decided to up and shoot at him, that would be different, of course....

Preacher dragged the unconscious man away from the mine entrance, cut strips off his shirt to tie and gag him, then straightened from that task and moved toward the dark maw of the mine shaft. He went into it carefully and extended a hand as he searched the stygian gloom.

It didn't take him long to reach the end. The Fredericksons had only penetrated about fifteen feet into the hillside, the shaft sloping downward a bit. Preacher explored the walls by touch and found several support beams fashioned from the trunks of trees.

Working by feel, he took the rope from his shoulder and rigged it around the beams at the end of the shaft. As he played out the strand he looped it around the other beams as well, and when he stepped out of the shaft he had about twenty feet left.

The guard had come to and was moving around a little. Preacher went over and knelt beside him, drew the knife, and put the edge against the man's throat.

“I could'a killed you earlier,” Preacher whispered as the man stiffened in fear at the touch of cold steel. “Don't make me sorry that I didn't.”

The man lay still. Preacher stood up and sheathed the knife. He went back to what he'd been doing.

A couple of old saddles lay next to the crude corral where the mules were. Preacher opened the gate and took the saddles inside, where he cinched them onto the big, stolid beasts. Then he led the mules to the end of the rope. He had to cut a couple of pieces off of it to come up with an arrangement where he could attach them to the mules and have both the animals pull equally. The mules weren't the least bit skittish while he did this, which was a lucky break for him.

He didn't know if his plan would work. Some dynamite would have been better. But a man had to work with the tools he was given.

“All right, you jugheaded varmints,” he told the mules. “You ready to do some haulin'?”

He grasped the halters he had put on them and backed away from the mine. The mules came with him, and behind them the slack in the rope lifted from the ground and became taut. When the mules felt that, they stopped.

“Come on,” Preacher gritted. “Don't get balky on me now, you dadblasted critters!”

He cussed and heaved, and after a minute the mules began to heave against the weight. Would the rope hold? Preacher didn't know. Some chain or cable and a bigger team of mules would've been better. So would a donkey engine. But he didn't have any of those things. He had rope, a couple of mules, and some ingenuity.

And the hope that that would be enough.

A scraping sound came from inside the mine. That was one of the support beams coming loose, Preacher thought. Once it gave, that allowed the mules to exert more force on the others, and a moment later the old mountain man heard more scraping.

Then with a clatter, all the beams gave way, and the mules lunged forward and dragged them out of the shaft. Preacher stopped the animals, since their work was done.

Then he held his breath and waited to see what the result would be. There was no guarantee the shaft would collapse just because the support beams had been removed.

The Fredericksons hadn't been tunneling through solid rock. There was a lot of dirt mixed in there, too, Preacher had discovered as he felt his way along the walls. That weakened the shaft. He listened closely and heard a pattering sound. That would be dirt and small rocks falling from the ceiling as the great weight of the hillside shifted a little.

The pattering grew more rapid and got louder. Then it suddenly turned into a rumble, and that rumble changed to a roar as the shaft began to collapse.

Preacher felt like letting out a whoop of triumph, but he didn't want to give away his position. Instead, he left the mules standing where they were and retreated quickly into the trees near the cabin. The place had been dark when he came up, but now the door flew open and light spilled out from a lantern someone inside had lit. Several figures charged out.

Preacher counted them. All four of the remaining Fredericksons appeared. The sons wore long underwear. The elder Frederickson was in an old-fashioned nightshirt.

All of them carried rifles.

“The shaft!” one of the boys yelled in alarm. “The shaft's collapsin'!”

“Where's Arly?” another shouted.

That would be the guard, Preacher thought, the only one of the sons whose name he hadn't heard until now.

Frederickson held the lantern high as they rushed toward the mine opening. He bellowed, “Arly! By God, boy, where are you? What's happened here? All our work ruined!”

Preacher slipped behind them, putting himself between them and the cabin. He drew both Colts, pointed the left-hand gun into the air, and pulled the trigger. The roar of the mine collapse had come to an end, so the gunshot sounded loud in the following silence.

The shot made the Fredericksons jump and start to turn around, but they froze when Preacher leveled his Colts at them and barked, “Hold it right there, you ridge-runnin' polecats! I got the drop on you, and I'll ventilate the whole lot of you if you give me an excuse.”

“You!” Frederickson exclaimed. “I knew we couldn't trust you! What have you done? Why'd you collapse our mine?”

“I reckon if I was you I'd be more worried about that boy o' yours who was standin' guard,” Preacher drawled.

“Arly? Damn him, if he let you ruin us!”

“Pa, don't say that,” Billy objected. “Mister, what have you done to my brother?”

“He's all right,” Preacher said. “Just got a sore head, that's all. But he'll get worse if you fellas don't cooperate with me.” His voice hardened. “I've come for Miss Margaret Langston.”

“What? You mean Mattie? She ain't Miss Langston! She's my wife!”

“Maybe in the eyes of the law, but if what I've heard about you varmints is true, I don't reckon it's a real marriage in the eyes o' God.”

“See?” Wiley said. He was the oldest of the four sons. “I told you we shouldn't—”

“Shut up!” Frederickson snapped. “What goes on inside a family ain't no business of outsiders!”

That reaction pretty well confirmed the rumors Elizabeth had heard, at least as far as Preacher was concerned. He reined in the impulse to start shooting.

Instead, he said, “Put them rifles on the ground and back away from 'em. I'm takin' the girl back to her mama, where she belongs.”

“She belongs with me!” Billy said as the four of them obeyed Preacher's command with obvious reluctance and anger. “She's my wife! We're in love!”

“You may be, but I'll bet she don't feel the same way no more.”

“You ask her!” the young man blustered. “You just ask her!”

“I intend to,” Preacher said. He raised his voice. “Mattie! Come on out here, gal! I'm a friend your ma sent to help you!”

He didn't take his eyes off the Fredericksons, but a moment later he heard some hesitant, shuffling steps behind him.

“Mattie, is that you?” he asked.

“Yes,” came the strained reply. “Who . . . who are you, mister?”

“They call me Preacher. I'm an old friend of your ma's.”

Frederickson snorted and said, “Old is right. I'll bet this relic can't even see well enough to hit anything with those guns. We should charge him, boys.”

“If you're that eager to get your sons killed, and your own self, too, you just go right ahead, Frederickson,” Preacher said.

The four of them didn't move.

“Listen here, Mattie,” Preacher went on after a moment. “Your ma asked me to come out here and get you and bring you back to her. I got to hear it from your own mouth, though, that you want to go.”

Before she could reply, Billy said, “Mattie, don't! You know I love you, honey. You gotta stay with me!”

Preacher heard Mattie swallow hard. Then she said, “I . . . I can't go, mister. I can't leave here.”

Preacher frowned.

“You don't mean that, gal,” he said.

Billy let out a whoop and pointed a finger. He said, “You see! She loves me, like I told you! She don't want to leave me!”

“It . . . it's not that,” Mattie went on. “I can't go back because of the . . . the shame. After what's been done to me, even a saloon is too respectable a place for . . . for the likes of me. I'm too
dirty.”

“Now, Mattie, that just ain't right,” Preacher said. “Only reason for somebody to feel shame is because o' somethin' they done their own selves. Nobody needs to be ashamed about somethin' that was done
to
'em.”

“I'd like to believe that's true, I really would, but I . . . I couldn't stand the way people would stare at me and talk behind their hands and snicker.”

“Anybody who did that, your mama would set 'em straight in a hurry. They'd be sorry enough they wouldn't do it again, neither.”

“I'm sorry, mister. I just can't go back.”

“I told you,” Billy crowed. “You'll see, honey, everything'll be all right.”

Frederickson said, “Except we got to dig out that damned shaft all over again because of what this old bastard did!”

“I'm just a whisker away from shootin' you just on gen'ral principles, Frederickson,” Preacher warned. “So I'd be careful what I said if I was you.” He turned his head slightly and added, “You got to be sure about this, Mattie. You can make it right if you want to. You just got to be brave enough to do it.”

“I know,” she said. “I already figured that out.”

She stepped beside Preacher. He saw her from the corner of his eye. She wore a long, white nightdress, and her long dark hair was loose around her face and over her shoulders. She had something in her hands, but Preacher couldn't tell what it was at first.

Frederickson saw it, too, and said, “What the hell is that the girl's got? It's not—”

Mattie raised the object with both hands and thrust it in front of her.

Billy cried, “It's your old Dragoon pistol, Pa!”

So it was, Preacher realized, and in that long white gown Mattie looked like some sort of avenging angel as she pointed the long-barreled revolver. The hammer was already pulled back and cocked.

Frederickson said scornfully, “That old thing won't even shoot anymore.”

Preacher began, “Girl, don't—”

But Mattie said, “I've got to make things right,” and pulled the trigger.